The present invention is a fuel vapor separator used in a fuel delivery system of an internal combustion engine, and more particularly, a fuel vapor separator for a Marine engine which uses water drawn into the engine from the Marine lake or sea water environment of engine operation for cooling purposes. It is a long recognized problem in the internal combustion engine art that heat build-up of an engine can adversely effect the fuel supply system of the engine thereby causing the fuel to vaporize before it is introduced into the engine's combustion chambers. This condition, commonly referred to as vapor lock, can not only have a damaging effect upon engine components but can result in poor engine performance, overheating and interrupted engine operation. Fuel vapor is particularly disadvantageous in fuel injected engines. Typically, in fuel injection engines, fuel is introduced into a fuel rail by a high pressure fuel pump before it is injected into the combustion chambers by the fuel injectors. The fuel rail is typically heated to relatively high temperatures due to engine combustion heat, and the heated fuel is returned back to the fuel system during periods of low engine use such as idling and start and stop operation.
Usually, the heated fuel from the fuel rail is returned to a vapor separator where any fuel vapor created by the heated fuel is condensed back to liquid fuel before the fuel is reintroduced into the high pressure pump and fuel rail. Such vapor separators heretofore known to the art have used some form of coolant passing through the separator to cool the heated fuel and condense any fuel vapor back into liquid fuel. In most outboard Marine applications, the liquid coolant is supplied from the operating environment and lake or sea water is circulated through the engine for cooling. However, because such water may have contaminants such as weeds, flotsam, or small biological life forms floating in the water, there is a risk that the engine cooling system and vapor separator may become clogged with debris and contaminants. An additional disadvantage of prior art vapor separators is that they can be expensive to manufacturer because of the intricacy of the component parts and long assembly time. Thus, it would be a desirable advanced in the art to have a vapor separator which is relatively easy to fabricate and which reduces the potentiality for clogging with contaminants.